Hands-On: LG Optimus G Pro

LG had its massive phablet on display at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here's a quick look at LG's Galaxy Note II killer.

from LG

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LG announced the Optimus G Pro earlier this month, but showed it off to the public at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week for the first time. To call it a Galaxy Note II clone is being kind. One side-by-side look at the G Pro and the Note II, and it is obvious where LG drew its inspiration.

The G Pro is a phablet with a 5.5-inch FHD display. It is enormous, just as the Note II, but it is thinner and lighter than its competitor. It is plastic through-and-though, with no metals weighing it down. The plastics are off decent quality, but I've definitely felt better. LG only had white versions of the phone on hand, and it is a big, white slab of a device that you simply can't miss.

The display is absolutely ridiculous. With 1920 x 1080 pixels in the IPS LCD screen, you're got one of the brightest, sharpest displays I've ever seen. It completely out-shown a Note II that I had with me. The pixel density is insane (more than 400 ppi), and everything I saw on the screen was razor sharp with no visible pixels anywhere.

GPro

There are three buttons below the display, just as with the Note II: back, home, menu. The back and menu keys are capacitive, and the home button is a real, physical button. All three worked well. The volume toggle is on the right side of the device and I found it easy to find and use. Travel and feedback was quite good. There's also a dedicated button for launching a TV remote app on the left edge. The screen lock button is opposite it on the right edge.

The user interface is the same one we've seen from other LG devices in recent months. Look at the Optimus G available from Sprint or AT&T, and you've got a pretty good idea of what sort of user interface themes and features are on board. This thing is powered by a quad-core processor at 1.7GHz each. To call it fast would be an understatement. It powered through everything I threw at it.

There's no word on whether or not this will come to the U.S., but given its high-end appeal, it wouldn't surprise us if it did.

No stylus would be a deal breaker for me. I know many here don't like LG, but I have personally never had an LG device I disliked. However, it's also fair to say I have never had an Android device made by LG either. My last LG device was an EnV Touch....(continues)